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Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

First, I believe that the Joint Committee on Human Rights was looking at the Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet (Mr. Gale). It contained a different test, and did not use the wording employed in our new clause 8 or in the earlier private Member's Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve), the shadow Attorney-General, has dealt already with the human rights arguments. At the Labour party conference, the Secretary of State wanted to do more than merely suggest that the law would just be clarified. His words make it clear that the law would be rebalanced, but that is not happening with this Bill. If merely restating case law would amount to greater protection for householders, engender greater confidence or prevent police from arresting and investigating people when they should not, why has not the existing guidance—which the Government introduced after the last review, instituted by Tony Blair—succeeded in achieving that? The Secretary of State apparently accepted the burden of those arguments just a few months ago, but what he now proposes is simply inadequate to send the clear and unambiguous signal, which the Opposition have consistently requested, to the country as a whole that the law is on their side.